Why do people still believe that wikipedia is an accurate source?

Question

It dosen have peer review and anybody can submit half truths, its a pointless source of information

Answer 1

I think people who use it don't realise what it is composed of and how it is added to.

However, someone else says they use it as they get fed up answering basic questions that people just don't bother to find the answer to and I can understand that as well.  People from a certain other country in the world seem to think that we a. "belong" to England; b. don't have shops and restaurants like everywhere else and c. lots of other weird stuff - I don't know where they get their ideas!  Think the Quiet Man should be taken off the market.

Answer 2

I wholeheartely agree. When I answer a question, I actually use my brain and reply from personal experience. If I don't know the answer, I ignore the question or research it and cite my resources. There's no effort involved - if askers wanted to use Wikipedia, surely they could do that themselves?

Anyone can submit information to Wikipedia - there's even a game now, mentioned in a few tabloids a few months ago, about posting living celebrities' dates of death. Such as Marti (sp?) Pellow, who 'died' in February, I think, for 2 days until moderators actually noticed. Anything that's that easy to rig is NOT a reliable resource.

Don't get me wrong - it's useful for some information, but as a resource, no way.

Answer 3

I know what you mean...it's like people just go to wikipedia, type in the word, and put a link to the definition...it's not right if a person doesn't know a thing about the subject they are answering...

I've also had college instructors tell me the site is not truely accurate in a lot of cases...

But as for Y/A it's a lame way to answer a question...that's for sure...

Answer 4

to tell you the truth i thought it was a good source.... and then i noticed some things aren't true in certain articles.

Answer 5

Wikipedia is accurate much of the time for general information, though it shouldn't be used for scholarly work or bibliographies or flamewars.  There's no harm in referencing it for casual information with the understanding that everything there may not be 100% accurate.

Answer 6

and this has what to do with Ireland?

Answer 7

some people need to see what ther references and sources are out there available.. I choose wikipedia but I also reference other sites.. Be open

Answer 8

I don't think it's totally useless, often it's very convenient if you just need a definition or a general idea of something.

Otherwise I agree with you, I find it very annoying if somebody pastes in an endless article where only about a tenth is relevant to the question, or if people use it to "prove" a point in an argument, without quoting any other source.

Answer 9

Okay, well, I will say that you are absolutely corect that wikipedia is not a good source fo answers in many cases.  Because it is user-defined, people can, as you said, post half truths.  You are wrong that it doesn't have peer review, though, because it does.  You can report things like incorrect info or impartiality.  And if you know how to use wikipedia, you know that the note "[citation needed]" means the info is totally unreliable, and the sources of other info, found in the footnotes, should be checked and individually assessed for reliability.  But it is a good starting point for people who have asked a question that either isn't being answered by others at all, or is only being supplied with silly, mindless answers.  Plus, a lot of info on there isn't readily available anywhere else but CAN be verified.

HOWEVER, you need to understand that part of the reason people post wikipedia or other internet-found text on here (which I have done myself), is that they are annoyed that people ask questions to which they could find the answers  with a simple web search.  Sure, when they are asking on Y/A, they do want answers from other people, but questions like "Where are the Aran Islands?" and the like shouldn't even be asked on this site, and don't deserve any more than a link or cut-and-pasted text as an answer.

So my short answer is that people don't necessarily believe it is a good source of information, they just use it as either a starting point or last resort, and it works quite well for both of these.